Opening the Asian Women’s Forum in Samarkand, the Chairperson of the Senate of the Oliy Majlis of the Republic of Uzbekistan Tanzila Narbayeva noted that the greeting of President Shavkat Mirziyoyev to the forum participants is the result of great attention to this prestigious conference.

– In his address, the Leader of our country explained why he put forward this initiative at the 78th session of the UN General Assembly and its purpose, – Mrs. Narbayeva said. – The organization of this forum in Uzbekistan is a striking example of the large-scale reforms carried out in our country to ensure gender equality and protect the rights and interests of women. The international community recognizes their practical results.

Ensuring women’s active participation in public administration, socio-political, economic, scientific, academic, cultural, and humanitarian spheres is becoming increasingly important.

This issue becomes even more relevant, especially as political and economic instability continues on a global scale and the risks of various conflicts are high.

UN Secretary-General António Guterres, in his speech dedicated to International Women’s Day, emphasized that women are making great strides in building a just and equal world. At the same time, he emphasized that they face many difficulties. Billions of women and girls are subject to injustice and discrimination.

In this regard, António Guterres noted the need to accelerate the pace of work in this direction, introduce active investments in gender equality, and broadly involve them in the economy, digital technologies, climate change, and peace-building processes worldwide.

From this perspective, the 17 Sustainable Development Goals must prioritize gender equality. None of the Sustainable Development Goals can be achieved without considering gender equality.

Today, the role of the Asian region in global development is rapidly growing. In particular, the countries with the largest share of the worldwide economy are located in the Asian region. Education, healthcare, information technology, economics, and many other sectors are developing rapidly. Of course, the role of women and their significant contribution to achieving such a high level of development cannot be denied. In this sense, we can say that the countries of the Asian continent have their own rich experience in protecting women’s rights, fully supporting them, and ensuring gender equality.

That is why we, women leaders of Asian countries, have gathered here to consider existing problems and issues in this area, learn from each other’s positive experiences, make equally essential decisions for all of us, and establish friendly relations. It should be noted that we have a positive practice of exchanging experiences among women in the Asian region. In particular, the dialogue between women leaders of Central Asian countries today serves as an effective platform for solving pressing problems in the region related to ensuring gender equality and protecting the rights and interests of women. I think it is necessary to unite all women in Asia based on the experience of this platform.

Norgul Abduraimova, photos by Alisher Isroilov, UzA